


starving

by MusicWritesMyLife



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boatloads of angst, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Friends to Lovers, K-2SO Is Not Amused, Not everyone dies, baby smugglers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-13 00:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9097597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicWritesMyLife/pseuds/MusicWritesMyLife
Summary: “Don’t look at me like that.” Years of training keep him from starting, but it unsettles him, again, that she can read him so easily. It’s like she’s inside his mind. “I’m not joining your rebellion. I needed the credits. Figured if I was going to sell information about the Empire to anyone it might as well be someone who can use it.”
  “Who says I want you to join the rebellion? You’d make a terrible spy.”(Jyn and Cassian meet years before Rogue One.)





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> So Rogue One destroyed me (what else is new) and in response to this boat-load of feelings, this has emerged. Basically, I loved the fact that Cassian and Jyn's relationship was fuelled by love-hateship and I couldn't the image of angry smol!children Jyn and Cassian fighting with each other about everything, much to K-2SO's chagrin.
> 
> Title comes from Hailee Steinfeld & Grey.

_you know just what to say_

_shit that scares me_

_i should just walk away_

_but I can’t move my feet_

_._

_._

_._

She’s sixteen when she meets him for the first time. Saw abandoned her in the bunker three weeks ago and she’s still reeling, scrambling to survive, to stay on the move so that Imperial troops won’t find her. They shouldn’t—Jyn Erso is a name long-buried, and as far as the Empire is concerned, she’s probably dead—but one of the many things she learned from Saw is that you can never be too careful.

The shuttle she’s been hiding in for the last three days finally docks on Mandalore. She stumbles out into a teeming spaceport, squinting in the sunlight that burns her retinas after so many days in darkness, and, for the hundredth time, curses Saw Gerrara for leaving her in that damned bunker. She’s only sixteen and, yes, maybe her skill-set is way beyond that of a typical teenager, but she’s too young to be dealing with this shit. Saw is the closest thing she had to a father, and even though she never saw him as a parental figure, even though she never forgot her father (couldn’t, no matter how hard she might have tried in the last five years), she’s relied on him. For protection, for company, for guidance, whatever; the point is she thought they were a team and he left her to rot in one of his hideaways in the Mid Rim.

She follows the crowds to the main square. It’s filled with market stalls selling wares from all corners of the galaxy, which half the city seems to be trying to buy, so she figures this is as good a place as any to try and get some food. She doesn’t have any credits—Saw, for all his genius, didn’t seem to realise that a blaster will do kriff-all to get her _food_ —but it won’t be the first time she’s stolen something and security seems pretty lax around here, so the chances of her getting caught are one in a million.

If she does, she’ll get out of it. She always does.

(Plus, it would be awfully inconvenient to get arrested. Saw probably figured she was getting to be too much of a liability, what with her father being the Emperor’s right-hand weapons technician, and she’ll be damned if she proves him right.)

She’s reaching for a loaf a bread when she spots him on the other side of the fountain, staring at her. She’s not sure if it’s because he recognises her or because she’s in the middle of committing a felony, but either way, she needs to make herself scarce, now. She’s spent her whole life being unremarkable and the fact that someone is remarking on it is nothing but trouble.

(There isn’t technically a price on her head, but Krennic would _love_ to find her alive after all these years. The stress of not knowing what happened to her, of not having her under his precious _control_ probably keeps him up at night.)

He follows her across the square. She tries to lose him in the crowds, weaving in and out of market stalls, but he keeps up, like a persistent shadow she can’t shake. Someone has trained him. Maybe he’s part of the resistance. Maybe he’s trying to rob her. Maybe he’s undercover police—he seems like the worst person to pick as a police officer, but she has no idea how things work here.

She’s going to have to fight him. It’s not ideal—she was hoping to keep a low profile here and brawling in the middle of the street is _not_ conducive to that—but she’s also been spoiling for a fight since Saw left her to rot in that bunker, so she supposes it’s better to get it over with now on some boy several years older and half a foot taller than later on someone who might really do some damage, like Stormtroopers.

She turns into an alley off the main square, putting enough space between her and her stalker that she can slip into a doorway without him seeing. She knows he’ll take the bait—he won’t let her slip away, not after he’s followed her this far.

All she has to do is wait.

Footsteps sound on the permacrete. She steps out from her hiding place; her pursuer barely has a second to blink before she rams her fist into his solar plexus. He drops the ground, clutching at his chest and making an awful wheezing noise and Jyn figures she can probably just leave him here, but she wants to know why he’s following her, so she waits a safe distance away, glaring at him.

If he’s got any sense, he won’t try to hit her back.

“Who the hell are you?” she demands. He’s still on the ground, gasping. Jyn’s been hit in the solar plexus before: once by a rock on Jakku, the other by Saw when she snuck up behind him. Both hurt like hell. “Why are you following me?”

“Why were you stealing?” he shoots back. It’s not great as far as comebacks go, but she’s willing to cut him some slack since he’s still lying on the ground trying not to show any weakness.

“What do you care if I’m stealing? Going to report me?”

He glares at her but doesn’t answer.

Fine. Two can play this game.

She’s not sure why she’s stuck around. Saw taught her that the best way to lose an enemy was to knock them out and get out as fast as possible. “Stay two steps ahead of them,” is what he used to say—which as far as Jyn is concerned, means knocking them down and getting the hell out of there. The last thing she should be doing is interrogating him, unless she’s got him tied down.

He’s just so _young_. Maybe she sees too much of herself in him, or maybe it’s the way his eyes—so dark, fathomless—soften the pit of her stomach. (She’s trying not to think about that too much.)

Whatever it is, he intrigues her enough that she stays there, glaring at him. She’s not going to let him know that of course, but it’s true. He talks differently, like Basic isn’t his first language. His hair is wild, flopping in his face like he doesn’t really know what to do with it.

He’s almost as stubborn as she is.

“You owe me a loaf of bread,” she mutters finally. She’s stolen before, so many times it’s almost second nature, but there was something about his gaze, like silent, crushing judgement, that made her put it back.

“I don’t owe you anything,” he retorts. "You were stealing.”

“Like you've never stolen before,” she scoffs.

His cheeks flush, but he doesn't look away. “I could take you somewhere where you can get more than food.’

She arches a skeptical eyebrow. “I don’t go places with strangers.”

“No, I mean—” He's blushing furiously now. The red stands out against the olive-bronze tint of his cheeks. “I could get you a job.”

“The Rebel Alliance, you mean?”

He blinks, clearly thrown off. Jyn doesn’t know what came over her either; she figured as soon as she saw him that he was with the Alliance, but she wasn’t planning on _telling_ him so. Information is valuable so long as the other side doesn’t know about it; that was another thing Saw used to say.

(Still, she gets a tiny bit of satisfaction in seeing the disbelief on his face, a thrill that she was able to destabilise him so easily.)

To his credit, he recovers quickly, tilting his chin up and glaring back at her defiantly. His eyes burn brighter than stars. “What if it is?”

Jyn snorts, folding her arms across her chest. She tries to muster as much derision as possible to mask the tiny part of herself that is tempted, that wants to be somewhere safe, that wants to belong again. The Alliance won’t protect her, not unless it serves their purpose. They’ll drop her when she’s no longer useful, once they find out who she is, just like Saw did and then she’ll be on her own again.

She made the mistake of trusting someone else to take care of her once. She isn’t about to do it again.

“I don’t need your rebellion. I can take care of myself.”

He scoffs. “You’re doing an excellent job so far.”

She glares at him. “What, like you’re doing at spying?”

It isn't fair, not really; he's only trying to help. It's not his fault she's broken beyond repair; it's not his fault she's jagged and angry, that the softness of her youth has been replaced with the hard edges of cynicism and betrayal. Still, the chip on her shoulder is big and the last thing she wants to do is put her trust in people who will let her down, so she pushes him away. It's easier that way.

“Fine.” He struggles to his feet, still short of breath. She watches him turn away, thinking she's seen the last of him, until he turns back at the last minute. His expression has softened somewhat; it makes him look younger. Open.

It makes her want to trust him.

“If you ever change your mind,” he says, “my name is Cassian. Cassian Andor.”

“How's your name going to help me?”

He grimaces, like he can't even believe he bothered to extend the olive branch. “If you tell the rebels you know me, they won't think you're a spy.”

“That's stupid reasoning,” she says, but she’s touched that he would risk his identity to help her. She hasn't done anything to deserve his kindness. There's a part of her that hates him for it.

He sighs heavily and reaches into his jacket. She half expects him to draw a blaster, or perhaps a holocard; her eyebrows lift in surprise when he tosses her the loaf of bread. It nearly slips through her fingers.

She lets him take three steps before she calls him back.

“Jyn!”

Cassian turns, brows furrowed in confusion.

“My name,” she clarifies, clutching the bread to her chest like a token. “It's Jyn.”

She doesn't give him a last name. He doesn't ask.

She swears she sees a smile on his face as he walks away.

* * *

 Cassian will never admit it, never in a million years, but there is a tiny part of him that falls in love with Jyn Erso the minute she punches him in the solar plexus.

He doesn’t want to like her. He tries very hard not to. (It’s harder than it seems, given that she attacked him.)

There’s something about her. Something that gets under his skin, like a persistent itch. Maybe it’s the way she moves so deftly through the streets, like this isn’t her first time out foraging for food, like she knows all too well how to disappear. Maybe it’s the anger in her eyes, raw and burning, that tells him she’s lost people too.

Maybe it’s because looking at her is a little bit too much like looking in the mirror.

It’s two years before he sees her again, but he’d be a liar if he said he didn’t think about her in the meantime. He hones his skills for the rebellion, climbs higher in the ranks, and perfects his Sabacc face. There are whispers among the new recruits about whether he has any emotions at all. Kaytoo seems perplexed by his redoubled efforts—“It will improve your odds of success by fifteen percent, but you’ve never seemed very interested in it before”; Cassian makes up some lie about how he’s a captain now, how intelligence officers can’t show weakness, because he’s not about to confess that he was thrown by a sixteen year-old with fiery eyes and a mean right hook who could read him like a book.

He doesn’t know why he offered her his name. He shouldn’t have; he knows better than to give out personal information to anyone, least of all hostile strangers he’s never met. There are too many children like he once was scattered across the galaxy, orphans of the war; caring about each and every one of them is a distraction, a weakness that can be exploited, so he cares about none of them. Their situation is tragic, but war always breeds casualties. The cause, the Rebellion, that’s what is important. Succeeding, defeating the Empire, that’s what he can do to help them.

He finds her in the Outer Rim; he and Kaytoo are tracing a lead about an Imperial weapons shipment. The planet, another in an endless list of places Cassian has been and will not remember, is hot, a dry heat the sucks the life out of everything. They’ve been here three days, waiting for the meeting with their contact and it’s _miserable_.

“At this rate, I’ll have no grease left in my joints,” Kaytoo mutters, glaring darkly out into the horizon. This spaceport is neutral, far beyond the reaches—or perhaps interest—of the Empire, so Cassian leaves him to mind the ship while he goes out for supplies. It’s the smart thing to do, and they both know it, makes it easier to blend in, but that hasn’t stopped the droid from sulking.

(Melshi has always said he’s too dramatic.)

“I don’t think grease can evaporate,” Cassian replies dryly. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t move.”

“Move?” Kaytoo doesn’t have eyebrows, but if he did they’d be sky-high. The sarcasm is evident in his tone. “Of course. As if there is anywhere I can go on this godforsaken place.”

Cassian rolls his eyes but doesn’t respond.

The meeting is scheduled to take place at one of the many cantinas in the spaceport, which is an hour’s hike from the ship; by the time Cassian shoulders open the door to the cantina, he is dripping with sweat and cursing the idiot who thought this was an excellent location for a meet. (The fact that it _is_ an excellent location for a meet only further grates on his nerves.)

Inside it’s chaos, a full-on brawl, the likes of which he hasn’t seen since Kaytoo insulted the Dug smuggler on Dantooine. Tables have been overturned, and the floor is littered with shattered glass and puddles of brightly coloured liquid. The bartender, a hulking Devaronian, is scowling from behind the counter but doesn’t interfere; obviously, this sort of thing isn’t new to him.

He doesn’t know how he sees her in the crowds: one minute he’s dodging a piece durasteel that might have once been part of a table and almost takes his head off, and the next, he’s staring into familiar grey eyes.

_Jyn._

She’s equally surprised to see him: her face goes slack for a moment before she scowls, as fierce and fiery as he remembers her being. He’s struck by how young she looks still, it’s been two years and yet she hardly seems a day older than when they last saw one another. She can’t be older than eighteen.

(He remembers how he was at eighteen, full of fire and passion and a need to fight. He wonders sometimes when that passion was lost to the grim weariness of war, wonders when he stopped seeing the world as a place of opportunity and started seeing it for how it was: a wasteland where only the unlucky survive.)

Someone—a large, nasty-looking Trandoshan—grabs her from behind. Jyn doesn’t seem at all concerned, twisting and dodging and throwing her body parts in all directions but Cassian is moving before he can stop himself. He shouldn’t feel the need to protect her—she obviously knows how to fight—but she’s so small, so young; it seems impossible that she could take on someone as big as the Trandoshan and survive.

(She would of course, even without his help, but he hasn’t learned yet how much of a warrior Jyn Erso is.)

He grabs her arm as the Trandoshan raises his fist, tugging her away from the fighting. “What are you doing here?" he hisses.

“I could ask you the same question.” Her eyes are blazing, like she wants to shout at him for pulling her from the fight, like she wants to tell him she _had it handled_ , but thinks better of it.

He clenches his jaw. Rage simmers in his veins unexpectedly. He doesn’t know why he’s angry at her for throwing her life away so carelessly—he doesn’t care about her, he doesn’t _know_ her—he shouldn’t be angry with her, and the knowledge that he is, the rage curling in the pit of his stomach, only makes him angrier. She doesn’t get to come in here and make him _care_ and then start asking questions about what _he’s_ doing. He’s risking his life, risking the rebellion, to save her from some stupid skirmish she probably could have handled. “None of your business.”

“And what I do is none of yours, either. I don’t need your help. I can take care of myself.” Blood trickles from the corner of her lip; she swipes at it hastily with the back of her hand. One eye is swollen and tender; it will be black by morning.

“Because you are doing such a good job on your own.”

She rolls her eyes. Cassian probably would have done the same at eighteen; he remembers brimming with attitude and taking any possible excuse to vent some of it. Everything seemed like a roadblock, everyone too slow. “You think I got caught here by accident? That either of us are here by accident?”

He hasn’t no idea what she’s talking about until he sees the way she stands, arms folded across her chest, smug smile curling at the corner of her lips. She looks almost…pleased with herself.

“You _started_ this?”

Jyn shrugs. “I needed a diversion. You should be thanking me.”

“ _Thanking you_?”

“I couldn’t risk us being overheard. The last thing I want is the Empire on my tale for selling their secrets.”

Cassian swallows the startled reply on the tip of his tongue. Jyn is the informant. Of course she is. He’s never believed much in fate, of the Force, but it figures with his luck in life, with the way that she affects him, that she would be the one he was meeting.

Still, it strikes him as good. Imperial officials wouldn’t look twice at a girl her size and she seems to love sticking her nose in situations that are almost guaranteed to get herself killed, but there are far easier ways to get credits than selling Imperial secrets to the rebels. Smuggling, for example, or code splicing. Jyn seems like a bright girl; her skills could be put to use doing all kinds of jobs, most of which are easier than tracking Imperial weapons shipments.

 _If you tell the rebels you know me, they won’t think you’re a spy_.

Perhaps she has come to him, to take him up on a half-hearted offer made years ago, but he won’t get his hopes up. She wanted nothing to do with the rebellion last time he asked; why should this time be any different? He’s here to retrieve her information and pay her for her services, not recruit her.

“You couldn’t have though of something a little more—discrete?” he says finally, in part because he knows it will get a rise out of her but mostly from disbelief that of all the possible distractions she could have come up with _this_ is the one. It’s effective, no doubt, but so ostentatious. Stealth has always been more his style.

Jyn scowls. “Do you want the information about the shipment or not?”

“Fine. But not here. Someplace else.”

He leads her out into the alleyway off the cantina (why are they always meeting in alleys?). She stands across from him, arms still holed across her chest, defensive and hostile. He leans against the wall across from her, one hand resting lazily on his blaster. He doesn’t expect to use it, not with the chaos inside the cantina, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

Jyn’s eyes flit to either end of the alley once, twice. Even when she looks back at his face, her expression is cagey, stance wary, like she’s ready to run at a moment’s notice. He wonders how many people have left her behind to make this shadow of a woman, fierce as durasteel on the outside, but fragile as glass on the inside.

She could benefit from a home. A cause.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Years of training keep him from starting, but it unsettles him, again, that she can read him so easily. It’s like she’s inside his mind. “I’m not joining your rebellion. I needed the credits. Figured if I was going to sell information about the Empire to anyone it might as well be someone who can use it.”

“Who says I want you to join the rebellion? You’d make a terrible spy.”

It’s a terrible response, a lie, and they both know it, but neither of them acknowledge it. This is a business transaction, nothing more.

(If Kaytoo were a person—as Cassian often imagines—he would be frowning when Cassian returns with Jyn in tow.)

Business transaction indeed.

_._

_._

_._

_the more that I know you_

_the more I want to_

_something inside me’s changed_

_i was so much younger yesterday_

 


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn will be the death of him, Cassian thinks sometimes. 
> 
> Jyn doesn't realise how much she misses Cassian until he isn't around. 
> 
> Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was only supposed to be five chapters, but my muse ran away with me (what else is new) and now it's six.

_you know just how to make_

_my heart beat faster_

_emotional earthquake_

_bring on disaster_

_._

_._

_._

Jyn will maybe be the death of him, Cassian thinks sometimes.

She refuses to join the Alliance. He’s tried to ask her a hundred times, in a hundred different ways, but she never agrees. She’s all but a part of it: following Cassian around like a shadow, insisting that it’s because she’s looking for a place to settle down and who else is going to keep him from getting himself killed anyways, but he knows better.

Kaytoo doesn’t like her. He says that she increases their risk of mission failure by 47% and that she shouldn’t be privy to classified information anyway.

“I don’t _know_ any classified information,” she retorts primly from her perch in the cargo bay. She’s cleaning a blaster that looks suspiciously like the one Cassian _lost_ on Bimmisaari, though he’s not about to ask her about it. (He tells himself it’s because he doesn’t want to give Kay anymore ammunition, but the truth is that he’d rather pretend Jyn isn’t stealing from his right under his nose.) “I’m not interested in learning your secrets, Kay. I’m not sticking around.”

For someone who doesn’t plan on sticking around, she has a funny way of showing it.

He doesn’t think she’ll stick around, not at first. When they leave the Outer Rim, Jyn huddled in the back of the cargo bay, Cassian tells himself he’ll take her as far as Lothal, where they have to stop and refuel before the last jump to Dantooine, and she’ll go on her way. He’s doing her a favour, nothing more.

Still, as she slips off into the spaceport, so small and young, he can’t help calling her back, pressing an encoded communicator into her palm.

(Kaytoo says it was a waste of perfectly good equipment, but he feels better knowing that she at least has someone to call if she gets in trouble.)

“It’s encrypted,” he tells her quietly. “Untraceable.”

She smirks. “So you _are_ trying to turn me into a spy.”

Colour creeps up the back of his neck against his will. “It’s just in case. For emergencies. You know, if you ever need someone.” His voice is gruff, like he doesn’t care, but they both know it’s not true.

(In fact, he’s in danger of caring too much.)

She raises her eyebrows, but he sees her tucks the communicator in her belt as she walks away.

It’s six months before he hears from her. He’s just starting to figure the communicator will never go off so when it does, suddenly, in the middle of a briefing, it sets his heart racing.

 _On Malastare,_ is all it says. _Stuck. Price on my head. Come when you can._

He’s lucky, as Kay reminds him, that the Alliance has him running surveillance of the Expansion Region out of M’haeli, otherwise Jyn might have been waiting for a long time.

He grits his teeth in response, stalking across the landing pad. As if they don’t all know he’ll come for her right away, regardless of where he’s been assigned. He’s the best liar in the Alliance, possibly; he can come up with an excuse for the detour.

She’s wary when he opens the door to her dingy hiding place, stolen blaster— _his_ blaster, and kriff, if that doesn’t warm his heart a little—primed, but relaxes when she sees him.

“Took you long enough.”

“What did you do to get a price on your head?”

She shrugs. “Crossed the wrong people, I guess. Besides, it’s not really my head. They don’t know my real name.”

(There’s a small part of him that feels honoured that she would trust him with her real name.)

She contacts him a few times after that, usually in the same situation: she’s gotten herself into some scrape with the law and is in hiding until he can take her off-world. Over the course of his six-month assignment to M’haeli, she’s racked up enough charges under different aliases to have half the galaxy looking for her.

He should probably be more annoyed with her, but he feels awe more than anything else. She’s fiercer than anyone he’s ever met, and twice as stubborn.

“You realise,” Kaytoo says crisply as they prepare to jump to hyperspace, “that this is terrible for espionage work.”

“Yeah, well we can’t all make our living spying on the Empire,” Jyn quips from the aft hold.

 _You could_ , Cassian thinks. _Draven would give his left eye to have someone like you._

_So would I._

Eventually, they fall into a routine: Cassian comms Jyn when he has an assignment and they arrange a meeting point on a nearby world. Sometimes she helps him, if it’s a quick, easy job, but most of the time she takes odd jobs while he’s working, stumbling back to his measly quarters, or the ship, or wherever they’ve made camp every night with shadows under her eyes and grease beneath her fingernails.

She’s becoming a permanent feature in his life, K tells him. It’s a risk, K tells him. Caring will only get you killed. He knows this better than anyone, and yet, she’s always _there_ , hunkered down in the cargo hold or bickering with K, or following him trough the streets like a shadow, and he finds he doesn’t have the heart to let her go.

Maybe it’s because neither of them are looking for anything, really.

Maybe it’s because he’s tired of being lonely.

Maybe they’re both tired of being lonely.

(“You know she’s stealing weapons from the stores before you take inventory,” Kaytoo snaps. “And you’re letting her do it.”

“Hmm?” Cassian hums, not looking up from his datapad. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He knows, of course he knows, but he doesn’t care. He’s done worse things to make a living; besides, it’s cute that Jyn and K both think she’s getting away with it.

K scowls. “When you get court marshalled, I will _not_ defend you.”)

* * *

He’s harder, Jyn notices. There’s a stiffness to him, a line of tension between his shoulders, that wasn’t there before. She sees the creases around him eyes, the dark circles and the scars that make him look older than his twenty-four years.

War ages you, Saw used to say.

It’s certainly aged him.

He doesn’t talk about what he does on these long assignments across the galaxy. Jyn doesn’t really want to know, and she doesn’t think he would tell her if she asks. Kaytoo wouldn’t let him.

Whatever it is, though, it eats at him. It’s evident in the way he doesn’t sleep at night, the way he stares off into the horizon for hours at a time with that look on his face, as though he’s a hundred miles away in a place infinitely more painful than wherever they are. He’s done things he’s not proud of, but they all have—this is war, and they’re all struggling to survive from one day to the next.

(It takes her a few months to figure out what that look is. _Haunted._ )

It isn’t until he’s gone that she realises how much she’s come to like having him around. She reaches for him in the middle of the night, half-asleep (they only slept together once, on Antar because Cassian’s room only had one bed and it was _cold_ and there weren’t enough blankets to make a second up on the floor), turns to him with a sardonic joke or a sharp quip, only to remember he’s gone somewhere she can’t follow. Somewhere she’s chosen not to follow, really, because it’s not like he hasn’t asked her to join in in a hundred different way.

(She say no because she doesn’t want to put her trust in another organisation, not after the Partisans, or the Empire, but really, it’s not like they’d let her work with Cassain anyway, so what’s the point? She’s doing more god this way—or so she tells herself.)

She even misses Kaytoo, a little.

It’s one of these times, these long stretches of _missing_ , when Cassian’s off on an assignment where she can’t follow or holed up at the Alliance base on Dantooine (she shouldn’t know that, but Cassian and Kaytoo are both entirely too trusting now; she went through the ships logs one time when she was bored, and _that_ many jumps to Dantooine isn’t a coincidence) doing Force-only-knows, that she meets Han and Chewie.

She’s working security on a shipment of illegal synthetic ryl crystals for a contact on Dorvalla. It’s a mindless job, really, hours of milling around on the ship with the other contractors, playing Sabacc and pretending not to care about anything—because Liana Hallick doesn’t care about anything—to pass the time until they get to the Ring of Kafrene. There isn’t much more to do once they’re there, either: the ring is supposedly under Imperial control, but the ’Troopers turn a blind eye to most of the smugglers passing through—probably because most of the so-called _trading_ that keeps the post afloat is of the illegal variety.

Like almost all jobs, they break up once the cargo has been delivered, flitting off to ships or transports or cantinas without so much as a backwards glance. Its’ part of the reason she’s always liked these kinds of jobs; no one asks any questions, no one wants to get to know you. You do the work and you move on.

(It’s not like with Cassian—Cassian who wants to know the very fabric of your soul without saying as much, who worms his way into your heart and refuses to let go.)

She finds a seat at a dingy cantina near the spaceport and orders a Kowasakian rum from the bartender, a surly Crolute who looks like there are a hundred things he’d rather be doing right now than serving drinks to the scum of the galaxy. She’s never liked rum, really, but Cassian swears by this stuff, and the burn of the liquid down her throat helps fill the hole in her chest a little.

There’s probably work to be found here, she thinks, scanning the bar. Smugglers from all over the galaxy bring their wares here to trade and some of them are bound to be looking for crews.

(She could have hitched a ride with one of her crewmates from the last job, headed further into the Core, but Dantooine’s not so far from here, and even though Cassian hasn’t made contact in months, he might. She tells herself she’s sticking around for work, but it’s really only because she doesn’t want to admit the truth.)

There’s a shout by the cantina door and the yowl of something that sounds an awful lot like a Wookie, which is all the warning Jyn gets before a man sprawls on her table. He’s lucky she had her glass in hand at the time; Kowasakian rum isn’t cheap.

The newcomer rights himself, a little unsteadily, pulling at the collar of his shirt. He’s a smuggler by the looks of it: dark jacket and trousers, blaster slung low on his waist, brown hair tousled from whatever fisticuffs he’s been getting into with whoever he’s pissed off this time. Jyn’s seen the look on a hundred different species in a hundred different places.

“Sorry,” he mutters, combing a hand through his hair. He flashes what she figures is supposed to be a charming smile but falls a little too far on the side of harried to be believable. “Han Solo, at your service.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t spill my drink,” she replies easily. “Looks like you’ve got enough problems on your hands already.”

“Who, him?” Solo jerks his head at the Tognath advancing, a hand caressing his blaster. “Nah. He’s harmless. Too much to drink.”

It’s meant to be convincing, she thinks, but there’s panic in his eyes.

The way Jyn sees it, she’s got two options: she can mind her own business and leave Solo to sort out his own troubles, or she can get him out of this mess. The first option will keep her out of trouble. The second will make her a friend, and with Cassian vanishing for longer and longer periods of time, another friend might not be such a bad thing to have.

Solo squares his shoulders, looking like a man marching to his own execution. Jyn figures the Tognath would be smirking if he could—it’s hard to tell when his mouth is covered with a respirator.

Jyn rolls her bottom lip between her teeth, considers her options once more, and then slides out of the booth with practiced ease acquired from having to talk herself out of many confrontations gone sideways. “Is there a problem here?” She leans against the table, drink in hand, keeps her tone easy, while her free hand brushes her jacket aside to expose the blaster and vibroblade sheathed against her hip.

Both parties are staring at her now: Solo’s jaw hanging open, and the Tognath—well, that respirator really just makes any kind of facial expression impossible to decipher. Jyn thinks of Benthic and Edrio, the Tognaths who ran with Saw—maybe they still do but it’s been years since she’s seen any of the Partisans—and how they used to get so angry whenever someone—usually Jyn—went against orders, compromised the sanctity of the mission. The way Jyn saw it, all that mattered was that the job got done, but they were stickers for the _rules_ , the _plans_ , the _loyalty to the cause_ , and Jyn was only there because she didn’t know there was anywhere else to be. If this one is anything like them, he’s probably not happy that she’s interfering in whatever beating he was about to dole out to Solo.

Good thing she’s never really cared about making other people happy.

“No,” Solo says hastily, flashing another one of those charming grins. Maybe he thinks that the Tognath will play nice in front of a third party; the scars on Jyn’s back from her scuffles with Benthic tell her she’s more likely to be thrown in as collateral damage. “No problems here, right Reeko?”

Reeko growls. “You promised you would take my blasters, you two-timing—”

He doesn’t speak Basic, but Jyn knows enough of their native tongue from her years with the Partisans to make it out. Solo obviously does to because he raises his hands in the universal gesture of innocence.

“Hey, now, I never said anything about _promises—_ ”

Somehow, Jyn finds this hard to believe, but she’s not here to judge moral character, she’s here to keep them both from being killed. “Looking to sell some weapons, are you?” she says instead, conversationally, like they aren’t on the verge of being murdered over a shipment of _blasters_. (She figured she would die for something stupid, but she figured it would be a little more exciting than _this_.) “I might know someone. If you’re still interested, of course.”

The Tognath’s metallic eyes narrow, but he hasn’t killed either of them, so she figures he’s probably still interested.

“I know a guy. Smuggler. Black market weapons mostly. Runs his operations out of Slik’s mostly; I’d try and find him there. Name’s Lestor Garrik.”

It’s one of Cassian’s aliases, one she hasn’t seen him use in years. She wasn’t even sure if he was a smuggler, but it’s enough to send the Tognath on his way, grumbling about all the things he’s going to do if her intel doesn’t check out. It won’t, because Cassian is somewhere in the galaxy far from here doing Force only knows, but it will buy them enough time to get out of here if they hurry.

Jyn drains her glass in one swallow. The rum burns with enough force to make her eyes water. She blinks the tears away, furiously, and swipes her small satchel off the seat beside her; Solo is still staring at her like he doesn’t really understand anything of what just happened, so she grabs his arm and drags him out of the cantina.

It takes a few steps before he reacts, comes to his senses maybe, but then he’s pulling away, scowling.

“What are you playing at?”

Jyn rolls her eyes. “We need to get out of here. Lestor Garrik doesn’t exist, and when your friend finds out, he’s going to be looking for both of us. I’m assuming you have a ship, so take me to it and we can get off this world.”

“Look, lady,” he says sharply, “I appreciate you helping me out back there and all but I don’t take passengers. I’ve already got a full crew.”

“So I should go and tell your friend that he’s changed his mind? I’m sure he’d love to do business with you.”

Solo’s scowl deepens. “Fine. Whatever. But I’m only taking you to the next spaceport and then you’re on your own.”

(She reminds him of this fact three months later, as they’re lounging on the _Falcon_ during a run from Nar Shadda. Chewie is kicking Han’s ass at dejarik while Jyn cleans her blaster. She still hasn’t heard from Cassian; whatever the Alliance has him doing is obviously deep cover. Kaytoo is probably delighted. Han shrugs and gruffly informs her that she’s proved to be pretty useful for a stowaway, which is his way of saying that he likes having her around. Chewie roars with laughter and reminds Han of six occasions—not including the one on Kafrene—where he would have died if she hadn’t been around to save his scrawny, hairless behind. Han blusters and postures, but Jyn is laughing harder than she has in a long time.)

* * *

Cassian is under cover the first time he meets Han Solo. The disaster—as Kay calls it, and really, it almost was, when he thinks about it (which he doesn’t if he can help it)—takes place on Corellia: Cassian’s been there for months undercover in the Imperial shipyards, trying to get see if the whispers of the Empire’s new super weapon are anything more than just whispers—they aren’t, and if they _are_ building a super weapon, it’s got nothing to do with the fleet. He figures Jyn has been keeping herself busy with contract work, but he doesn’t expect to see her _here_. With another man, no less.

(Later, he’ll say he doesn’t really know what got into him at the time, but he does, it’s just not something he likes to think about.)

He’s at a cantina, a favourite place for smugglers and lower-ranking officers who can gamble their wages away for illegal goods. Cassian has made some friends on the low level in an attempt to blend in; the cantina is their usual watering hole and he is in his usual position: nursing a single Kowasakian rum and watching for suspicious individuals while pretending to be interested in the gambling.

She’s sitting at a booth in the corner, half-shadowed. He almost misses her; it isn’t until his eyes are making a third round of the room that he spots her, and only because she moves at the last minute, laughing at a joke made by her companion. He’s a smuggler by the looks of it, human, with a slick charm that has Cassian’s blood boiling. The way he leans across the table, one hand loosely clutching his drink—something blue and bright and sickeningly sweet, probably—the fingers of the other hand drumming the tabletop makes Cassian sick.

It shouldn’t matter. What Jyn does with her spare time is entirely her decision. They aren’t an item, they aren’t anything; they couldn’t be, he tells himself, because it’s too dangerous for the rebellion, but really his hesitation is largely because he’s sure Jyn would laugh in his face if he even asked. So what if she’s here with some sleazy smuggler? Maybe they’re on a job together, or he’s a mark. Cassian has had to seduce people in the line of duty before.

A good intelligence officer would compartmentalise the thought, shove it in the back of his brain for analysis later. A good intelligence office would stick to his job, wouldn’t risk blowing is cover for a scrawny girl with no loyalties.

(Cassian used to think he was a good intelligence officer.)

He mumbles some excuse to his companions, who are too engrossed in their game to notice (this, he will tell himself later, is a large part of why he manages to pull it off), and slips away. He skirts the edge of the room—his excuse is that it diverts suspicion but really it’s so that Jyn won’t see him approach. He’s never really had a flare for the dramatic, but it’s a by-product, he supposes, of spending so much time with Kay.

The bastard smuggler is telling some story when he arrives, probably recounting some daring escape in an effort to endear himself to Jyn. He should know that those things don’t impress her, but Cassian doesn’t really have high hopes. Guys like him aren’t known for their powers of observation. Jyn is smiling though, like she’s amused rather than enthralled and Cassian pauses for a fraction of a second because what if this is an operation? She’s going to kill him for exposing her to her mark. She doesn’t get in the way of his work (mostly) and he doesn’t get in the way of hers. It’s their unofficial agreement, it’s the reason they’ve stuck together for so many years (or so he tells himself because it’s safer than the alternative), and if he breaks it they’ll fight about it, and maybe she’ll decide she’s better running on her own after all.

(She won’t, he figures, but the thought alone is like a vice grip on his heart.)

Then the idiot leans across the table, smirking like he’s some Force-forsaken _gift_ to womankind, and says something too low for Cassian to hear over the din of the cantina, but which is definitely suggestive, and all coherent thought leaves his brain.

It is, he realises vaguely, as he takes the three strides between him and their table, a terrible idea to interfere. Not only is he jeopardising his assignment—and potentially Jyn’s—and potentially about to start a brawl, he’s at risk of exposing feelings that he’s kept close to his chest for too long, feelings that he hasn’t even stopped to analyse himself.

(Kaytoo would tell him his odds of success are less than 1%, probably.)

(Cassian is past the point of caring about the odds.)

“Jyn.”

Her name is torn through his teeth, sharp and bitter and _furious_. Cassian can’t remember the last time he was so angry; it feels like his insides are on fire, like his skin is too small, like he’s about to explode at any second. He can’t see straight; all he can see is Jyn, dark hair tumbling loose from its pins—as usual—eyes widening in surprise. She obviously didn’t expect to see him here, either, and dressed in an Imperial uniform, no less.

There’s a growl from the shadows of the booth, not seconds after Cassian speaks, and he realises with a tiny tendril of dread that there is a _Wookie_ in those shadows, that in his fury, in his desperation to get Jyn away from this _karking_ idiot who thinks he’s some kind of god, he’s completely forgotten to assess the environment for potential hostiles. Of course a smuggler isn’t going to be in a place like this alone—especially one as harmless-looking as Jyn’s _friend_. The Wookie is the muscle, the one there to scare off unwanted visitors—which Cassian supposes he is, especially in his uniform.

Fortunately, he’s had enough run-ins with hired muscle to no longer be intimidated; rather than cower in his boots, he levels the furry beast with a glare, inwardly cursing his oversight.

“Who the _hell_ are you?” the smuggler snaps. One hand still caresses his drink loosely, but the other is gripping his blaster. Ballsy move, to try and shoot an Imperial officer in a cantina crawling with Imperial personnel. The smuggler’s either very brave or very stupid—or both.

Cassian almost wants to reprimand him for addressing an Imperial officer insubordinately when he’s the scum of the galaxy—that’s what he should do, it’s what any self-respecting Imperial would do and then they’d ask for papers—but Jyn is glaring at him now, eyes hot and blazing, like she’s realised why he’s here and what he’s doing, and he can’t look at anything else.

His arm is on her wrist suddenly, like a vice grip, because there are things he needs to say to her, none of which he’s going to say here where people can overhear them. She’s glaring at him, mutinously, and her companion is inches from drawing his blaster and shooting Cassian in the chest. What he should do in this situation is pretend he’s arresting her for something—Force knows she’s wanted for enough crimes under different names. It only decreases the chances of Solo shooting him slightly, but it makes the story more plausible.

What he does is tug Jyn out of her seat and drag her to the door. The only reason he makes it out alive is because she has the foresight to mutter, “It’s okay, I know him,” to her companions as they go. He can feel her anger rolling in hot waves against his back, imagines that she’s trying to burn holes into the back of his jacket with her eyes, but she waits until they’re in a alleyway off the cantina, away from the crowds of the streets, before she explodes.

“What in the seven Sith _hells_ was that?” she hisses. Cassian has never seen her this angry, which is fitting, since he’s never been this angry, either.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he snaps. His cheeks are on fire. He still hasn’t let go of her wrist.

(She hasn’t wrenched it from his grip either, which is a good thing.)

She folds her arms across her chest, glowering. “ _I’m_ not the one who just dragged me out here for no apparent reason while _undercover_ — Do you realise what you’ve done? You could have blown your cover over some stupid, petty— Well, whatever the hell this is,” she says, waving a hand in the precious few inches between them. “And I hope you know what this is,” she adds menacingly. “I hope you know what you’re doing here, Cassian, because I have no kriffing idea.”

“What were you doing with that smuggler?” he asks sharply because all he can see are twinkling blue eyes and that smirk full of teeth and it’s making him crazy. He doesn’t have any idea what he’s doing, really; if Kay were here, he’d point out that Cassian has never had such a visceral emotional reaction before. He’d probably add that he finds it frankly disturbing and that Jyn’s liability risk has increased by about 35%.

“What do you care?” she snaps. “You’ve been gone for months, doing who only knows what, and I haven’t said anything, have I? I don’t say anything about who _you_ choose to spend your time with. Ever.”

“I don’t like him,” he mutters. It’s childish, and he knows it; Jyn knows it too from the look of outrage on her face.

“You don’t _like_ him?” Her voice is so low he has to lean closer to catch it. Their faces are inches apart, he can see the flecks grey in her eyes and all he wants to do is kiss her, which is not going to help the situation. She laughs, but it sounds low, hollow. “I hate to break it to you, but you don’t get any say.”

“I’m just concerned about who you spend your time with.”

It’s a lie, in a way, but it’s the closest he can get to the truth.

“Well, don’t be. Han and I do jobs together sometimes. He’s just another one of my contacts.”

(He isn’t, because she doesn’t get that close with her _contacts_ , she doesn’t use her real name with her _contacts_ , but saying that is dangerously close to saying why they’re really here right now, doing this, and he’s not about to do that.)

“Doesn’t seem like it to me.”

“It doesn’t matter what it seems like to you,” she snarls. He wants to protest—though he doesn’t really know what he can say because it _doesn’t_ matter what it seems like to him, everything she’s saying is true and that’s the way it’s always been and he doesn’t really know why everything is different now—but she places both hands on his chest and shoves him hard enough that he stumbles, momentarily caught off-balance. “I think you should spend more time worrying about your _assignment_ and less time working about me. I’ve heard that Imperial prisons can be awful, especially for Rebel spies.”

She’s three steps down the alley before he registers what’s happening. He curses quietly and follows her because that’s what he _does_. He has her back, always had, except for the times when he can’t be with her, and it’s probably better if she has someone she can trust to cover for him during those times, even Cassian would like to punch his pretty teeth in.

When he calls her name softly, catches her wrist, he means to apologise, to tell her that he had no idea what came over him, that the job is getting to him, but she turns to him with eyes so full of fire and her mouth is right there and Cassian can’t help himself. He takes her shoulders in his hands and he thinks that maybe she can see the intention in his eyes because her expression stutters a little, flickering from anger to confusion to something soft that makes Cassian’s heart hammer painfully against his chest.

His mouth is inches away from hers. He can count the eyelashes on her cheekbones, the freckles dusting the bridge of her nose…

“Cassian.”

He has never in his life regretted reprogramming Kay as much as he does in this moment.

Jyn exhales shakily, from relief or disappointment, he doesn’t know. Cassian grits his teeth and exhales long and slow, the way Megwe taught him to when they first started working together, back when he was full of fire and anger. “A good spy knows how to control their temper,” he said.

“What is it, Kay?” he says tightly.

“You didn’t return with the group,” the droid replies simply. “I was concerned. I see now that I should have been.” He glares pointedly at Jyn. “Being seen with her increases the risk of failure by 61.5%.”

Jyn laughs. “Nice to see you too, Kaytoo. I’ll, um, see you around, Cassian. Good luck.”

She flits out of the alleyway, probably back to the cantina to find her friends. Cassian pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers and wonders what he ever did to deserve such _chaos_ in his life.

“You don’t look happy,” Kay observes. “Did I interrupt something?”

“No,” he mutters. “It was nothing."

* * *

 Cassian comms three weeks later to say that he’s been pulled from Corellia and redirected to M’haeli. There’s a large Alliance force there, and they’ll have instructions for his next assignment. The _Falcon_ is refuelling on Thyferra before making another run to the Outer Rim—why Han keeps trading with the Hutts, Jyn will never understand; the money is good, he says, but she can’t imagine it’s worth the trouble of owing Jabba and his ilk for anything—so it’s easy to arrange a meet.

It doesn’t occur to her until Cassian strides into the hanger and Han’s jaw drops open that she’s never said anything about Cassian since they left Corellia. (She’s been doing everything in her power to forget that Corellia ever happened.)

“Is that—?” he hisses, one hand reaching for his blaster.

“Yes,” Jyn replies, grin curling around the corners of her mouth because he looks like _Cassian_ again and there’s that little twitch to his mouth that he gets when he’s trying not to smile that tells her he’s happy to see her. “Only it’s not what you think. He’s with the Alliance. He was under cover.”

Han leans back, expression thoughtful. His hand hasn’t left his blaster. “Undercover, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Interesting.”

_._

_._

_._

_the more that I know you_

_the more I want to_

_something inside me’s changed_

_i was so much younger yesterday_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cassian might think Han is clueless, but he seems to have more clues than these two... ;)


End file.
